We associate female circumcision with backward cultures and religious fanatics. Nothing could be more wrong. Even in the 19th century, the excision of female genitalia was considered a universal method of treating diseases in Europe and the USA. And this macabre procedure was practiced on a massive scale.
Today, according to UNICEF data, there are at least two hundred million circumcised women in the world. Clitoridectomy is popular mainly in the countries of Africa and the Middle East. She became famous thanks to Waris Dirie, a model from Somalia, who told about her own mutilation in an interview given " Marie Claire ” in 1997. 
With the growing population of Third World immigrants in Western European countries, this cruel custom is returning to the old continent. Is coming back? Exactly! In the nineteenth century, even respected physicians performed such procedures . For the sake of patients and fear of imaginary diseases.
The mother of all diseases - hysteria
In the nineteenth century, all ailments that happened to women were thrown into a capacious sack with the inscription "hysteria". Although a lot has been said about this " disease ” , it is difficult to get to a specific definition with a closed list of symptoms.
While female circumcision seems to be the height of barbarism today, a century ago "civilized" Westerners considered it a great panacea. Billboard of the campaign against clitoridectomy in Uganda (photo:Amnon Shavit, license CC BY-SA 3.0).
Almost anything could be hysteria . Harvey Kellogg, inventor of the famous oatmeal, and a dedicated member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, wrote about this condition:
The phases it takes are so numerous that we won't try to describe them in detail; this is not necessary since there are few who would not be familiar with its peculiar manifestations.
Convenient, right? Additionally, it was supposed to be a very insidious disease that could impersonate another ailment , for example pneumonia. This happened to one of Kellog's patients, who was coughing and complaining of chest pain, but the doctor was unable to confirm these symptoms. After the diagnosis of hysteria and the application of the appropriate treatment, everything passed as he took his hand.
John Harvey Kellogg - inventor of corn flakes and open opponent of the clitoris (source:public domain).
The woman's intimate organs were blamed for this terrible disease. For centuries, the sexuality of the fair sex has been demonized, suppressed, distorted and, above all, - completely misunderstood.
Guilty of clitoris
Diane Ducret, author of the best-selling book Forbidden Body. A story of male obsession ” this explains the phenomenon:
Female pleasure is burdened with guilt because - as independent of the male - threatens the health of those who engage in such practices, and at the same time disturbs the moral order of society.
After careful study, competent scientists came to the conclusion that the main culprit is one, seemingly inconspicuous, anatomical detail - the clitoris. The solution to the problem is then self-imposed:remove - writes Ducret.
The Viennese surgeon Gustav Braun undertook the testing of the therapy. In 1869, he published the results of his research and the results of treatments. It turned out that the effectiveness was 100%. clitoris excision and smaller labia healed from dangerous masturbation who was believed to be one of the causes of an equally dangerous hysteria.
The method also showed promise for another physician, the Englishman Isaac Baker Brown. The Puritan doctor, extremely popular in his time, also mutilated women in an attempt to heal them of non-existent diseases.
His first patient suffered from a haemorrhage for three days after the surgery. The doctor was not indifferent to her suffering:to ease the pain, he recommended rubbing oil into her chest. Somehow, the woman recovered after two months. For Brown, this was proof of the effectiveness of his method.
Isaac Baker Brown. Another respected doctor who believes that a clitoral excision is good for everything (source:public domain).
Success encouraged him to experiment. He began to treat clitoridectomy as a remedy for various diseases, and even used it preventively . There was a strange case of a twenty-one-year-old girl who was admitted to the clinic because her back ached after removing a heavy pot from the fire. The doctor decided to cut the woman's genitals out.
The fashion for clitoral excision ended in Europe when a woman was "operated on" against her will. Only then did the medical community react with indignation and Baker was removed from the list of obstetricians.
From Europe to the New World
As reflection came to Europe, the macabre "fashion for surgery" began to be popular in the United States. Robert Battey, a surgeon in Rome, Georgia, treated women from painful periods ... by castrating them.
Since emotional problems are related to the menstrual cycle, you need to free the woman from what causes it - in other words, from the ovaries - writes Diane Ducret in the book Forbidden Body. A story of male obsession ” - By the way, since the ovaries produce testosterone, the hormone of desire, castration of a woman also solves the problem of sexual arousal.
Although we associate female circumcision today with such pictures, over 100 years ago in the Western world, it was performed in the privacy of doctor's offices, with the use of, for example, a deadly poisonous phenol. The photo shows a procedure performed on a girl from the present Central African Republic at the beginning of the 20th century (photo:vergiat, A.M., Wellcome Library, London, license CC BY 4.0).
The aforementioned Harvey Kellog, a Puritan, for whom the appropriate frequency of intercourse between spouses is once a month, recommended pouring phenol into the female genitalia . According to Dr. , applying pure carbolic acid to clitoris reliably calms any abnormal excitement.
The article is based, among others, on the book by Diane Ducret, "Forbidden Body. A history of male obsession ”(Znak Horyzont 2016).
Dr. Demetrius Zambaco was even more radical. To cure the girls of the terrible habit of masturbation, he recommended burning their private parts with a hot iron. This is how he describes the "treatment" of a six-year-old girl in whom concerned parents noticed rubbing against objects with their genitals:
I stick three carbons to each of the larger labia and clitoris and to punish the girl for disobedience, I also burn the buttocks and loins with iron. He swears he won't do it again.
The patient was cured after three treatments.
Scientifically proven ignorance
The forbidden body of a woman was a mystery to doctors in the 19th century. Supposedly, it was known how the fair sex was built "there", but it was not fully understood how it all works. Female sexuality was then true terra incognita for most .
Even educated doctors in their scientific studies included theses that today can only be responded to with laughter. For example, they believed that women due to their anatomical structure should not walk. That they breathe differently from men. That from the onset of menopause it is harmful for ladies to have sexual intercourse.
Ladies should behave in a stable manner, because even walks are detrimental to their health. Or so, nineteenth-century doctors believed. In the image of the court of the French Empress Eugenia (author:Franz Xaver Winterhalter; public domain).
Each of these nonsense was provided with appropriate explanations using many specialized expressions and with the results of alleged research intended to give the theses the rank of scientific facts. False beliefs weren't just about female sexuality. It has been seriously claimed, for example, that constipation is one of the main causes of arousal in men .
While men were recommended at best not very pleasant icy compresses on known parts of the body, in the case of women the doctors were not so conservative. The forbidden body, as arousing fear and insecurity, had to be simply removed.
Bibliography:
- I. Baker Brown, On The Curability of Certain Forms of Insanity, Epilepsy, Catalepsy, and Hysteria in Females , London 1866.
- Diane Ducret, Forbidden body. A story of male obsession , Znak Horyzont, Krakow 2016.
- Female Genital Mutilation / Cutting:A Global Concer , UNICEF, New York, 2016.
- J.H. Kellogg, Plain Facts for Old and Young , Burlington, Iowa 1881.